PARIS: Pakistan’s sole competitor at the Paralympics did enough to put the country on the medals table in Paris.

Haider Ali claimed bronze in the men’s discus throw F37 final on Friday with his 52.54m throw seeing him clinch his fourth medal at the Paralympics.

The 39-year-old, who suffers from cerebral palsy, finished behind Uzbekistan’s Tolibboy Yuldashev, who took gold with a massive 57.28m throw on his sixth attempt, and Canada’s silver medallist Jesse Zesseu, who had best throw of 53.24m.

Defending the gold medal he won in Tokyo last time around, Haiderwas gracious in his third-placed finish, doing a victory lap after the final and hugging the other medallists and competitors in the process.

Haider led the field in the first attempt with a season’s best 52.28m throw until Zesseu took top spot in the third round, with a 52.81m throw.

But then it was time for Yuldashev to take over. A huge 53.48m throw in the fourth round was followed by a season’s best 56.03m on the fifth before the 21-year-old bettered it with a monstrous 57.28m in his final attempt.

Yuldashev’s gold follows his bronze in the Men’s Shot Put F37 last week.

Haider fouled his second, third, fourth, and fifth attempts but came back strongly in his last attempt to claim bronze.

He now has a total of one gold, one silver and two bronze medals after five Paralympic Games appearances — the only medals Pakistan has ever won.

His first was a silver at his debut at the Beijing 2008 Games in the men’s long jump F37/38 and was followed by a bronze in Rio de Janeiro eifght years later in the men’s T37 long jump.

Elsewhere on Friday, Brazilian swimmer Gabrielzinho, one of the faces of the Games, failed to make the final after moving into a different category, while British cyclist Sarah Storey won her 19th gold.

The Brazilian, who has stumps for arms and atrophied legs, has won three gold medals at these Games but had warned that when he moved into the S3 class, he would struggle.

So it proved as he finished fifth in his 50m freestyle heat won by Serhii Palamarchuk of Ukraine, leaving him outside the eighth fastest swimmers from the two heats who qualified for the final.

In other sports, the evergreen Storey won the 19th gold medal of her Paralympic career as she beat French rider Heidi Gaugain in a sprint finish to the cycling road race.

It was 46-year-old Storey’s 30th Paralympic medal, earned across two sports and in the nine Paralympic Games she has contested since Barcelona 1992.

In Thursday’s action, another Paralympic superstar, Italian fencer Bebe Vio, failed to win gold for a second time at these Games as Italy had to settle for a wheelchair fencing team bronze medal.

Two-time individual champion Vio was defeated in her semi-final of the women’s foil on Wednesday in one of the biggest shocks of these Games.

Vio’s hopes of taking advantage of a second opportunity to win gold in the team event were dashed as Italy lost 45-41 to China in a hard-fought semi-final contest.

The Italian went on to win a bronze medal by beating Hong Kong.

French President Emmanuel Macron was in the crowd at the Stade de France on Thursday to watch the athletics action as Australian double amputee Vanessa Low bettered her own world record with a jump of 5.45 metres in the women’s T61 long jump.

After early action on Friday, China led the medals table on 74 golds with Great Britain advancing to 38 and the USA third with 27. The Netherlands are fourth with 21 golds and host nation France have 17 in fifth place.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2024